Park District: Convenience Before Safety

Monday, September 3 is the last day of Chicago's beach season. It is the last day that lifeguards will be present on the beach.

Nevertheless, that didn't stop the Park District from ordering lifeguards to take down the "perches" and haul them off the beach, tipped over on their side.

RPB asked a lifeguard at the station by Pratt Avenue why this was. "You'd have to ask them, I don't know." The perch was still up by Pratt, but the "them" he referred to was the Touhy lifeguard station. "They've never had a perch," he said. I told him they did, I'd photographed it, and it was up all summer. He shrugged his shoulders. Down to Touhy I went.

At the Touhy lifeguard station, I counted 16 Bay Watch types playing catch or shooting the breeze, about a hundred yards from the nearest stretch of beach.

"Why are the perches down already?" I asked. I was met with a group of smirks.

"Tomorrow's the last day," one said.


"Yes, tomorrow is the last day," I said, "so why are they down now? Why not at the end of the day on the last day?"

"Orders from downtown," Ms. Bay Watch said, "they need us to do it while we're all still here."

"Why not have city workers do it on Tuesday, after the beaches are closed?" I said.

"They need us to do it. Why should they pay city workers to do it?"

Indeed. But perhaps the correct question would have been, "Why disturb those well paid city workers to actually do some work?"

More importantly, and back to my point, why does the Park District seem to think that drowning is less likely just because it's the last day of the season?

"But," I said, "you can't see everything as well if you're not on the perch."

A surprisingly stupid response. "We can see everything better from the row boats."

It will come as news to military guards the world over to learn that they can see the terrain better if they just come down from their guard towers.

"But what if somebody is in trouble down the beach? You could run faster on foot than you could row to them," said I.

"No, we row pretty fast." Right. I'm sorry, as an overweight older guy, I know that I can run faster than those boats can be rowed.

These lifeguards apparently had mindless following of beaucrats as part of their indoctrination - I mean, training.